The National Geographic Magazine
My first inkling that things were not as
they should be was the changed attitude of
the Indians. Old friends would make excuses
in order to avoid us.
"I cannot work with you today, senior. I
must go to Ilave to trade."
Or it would be: "Not today, sefior. My
wife's mother is ill. We must go to Huata."
Finally the Indians stopped making ex
cuses altogether. They simply ran into their
houses and slammed the doors.
"What is it, Clemente?" I asked my in
terpreter.
"What have I done now?"
"It is nothing that you have done, Sefior
Doctor," he said. Then he added cautiously,
"Of course I am a Christian and put no
faith in pagan beliefs, but the people are say
ing that you and your good wife have been
bewitched."
"What?" I cried, unable to believe my ears.
"What do we do about that?"
"With your permission, I would suggest
that we go to a diviner and ask him to read
the coca leaves."
At this point, matters had become serious.
The milkman said that his cow was dry and
that there would be no more milk, and the
egg man said that his hens had stopped
laying. Moreover, Manuel intimated that he
had better stop working for us. And so, tak
ing my interpreter's advice, we consulted a
diviner, old Eusebio Choque. The old man
scattered out coca leaves and then shook his
head sadly.
"You see, most of them are wrong side up.
Perhaps you will die!"
That settled it! We would do what any
frightened Aymara would do in our place.
We would get unbewitched.
Counterwitchcraft Cost $10
As it turned out, the procedure was not
particularly complicated and only moderately
expensive. For the two of us, plus 18 Indian
laborers, the ritual cost less than $10. That
included two counterwitches, or magicians,
and some very special and tasty offerings to
the spirit world, the piece de resistance being
two desiccated llama fetuses!
Late one afternoon my wife and I sat in
the magician's house while he, his colleague,
and their assistants prepared 144 offerings to
as many spirits. Each offering was simple,
consisting of three perfect coca leaves pow
dered with shaved llama fat, wild mint leaves,
and the dust of a silvery mineral. As each
magician finished an offering, he breathed on
it, held it aloft, and intoned, "Such-and-such
mountain spirit, I salute you. This is your
food."
At stated intervals we were obliged to stop
for a drink and a chew of coca, for drink
ing and coca chewing are obligatory on all
Aymara ceremonial occasions.
The afternoon passed, and well into evening
the offerings to the innumerable spirits con
tinued almost endlessly, or so it seemed. The
night grew dark, and still the magicians droned
on.
Finally the chief magician paused with an
offering in mid-air to ask, "Is it nearly mid
night, sefior? At the stroke of midnight the
spirits come down to eat their offerings."
I looked at my watch. It was a little
after 10.
"Close to it," I said, without troubling to
be more specific.
Burnt Offerings for the Spirits
With that the offerings were gathered into
a bundle, and, our way lighted by flickering
kerosene lanterns, we stumbled over the rough
streets and fields toward the ruin.
The night was cold and pitch-black, with
a freezing wind blowing from the lake. In
the feeble light of the guttering lanterns it
was easy to imagine that the spirits were
indeed about to descend.
In the old ruin the magicians burned the
offerings in a ring of fire. Incense and liba
tions of alcohol sent sparks and flames shoot
ing up toward the dark sky and cast long
shadows on the ruined walls.
"They are coming!" cried the magicians.
"The spirits are coming to eat their offerings!
We must hurry away without looking back.
If you see them, you will die!"
Hurry away we did, and I must confess that
I, for one, did not look back.
The next morning there was no trace of the
ritual in the ruin-no ashes, not a footprint.
The burnt offering had been carefully col
lected and deposited in the waters of a swift
flowing stream. All traces of the night's ac
tivities had been obliterated.
As a final footnote, it must be added that
for fear the counterwitchcraft would cause
the spell to backfire upon herself, Sefiora
Perez left Chucuito, bag and baggage. When
I returned to the village for the last time
several years later, I found that she had never
returned.
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